


A Night You Won't Remember

by badgerling



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, past-Winter Soldier/Black Widow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-19
Updated: 2014-05-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 16:44:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1655423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badgerling/pseuds/badgerling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A lost soldier on a dark street, and Natasha Romanoff forgets her mission.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Night You Won't Remember

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Blair for the beta. All remaining mistakes are my own, not hers. All characters in the story belong to Marvel. No infringement is intended. 
> 
> Takes place shortly before Natasha was given her assignment at Stark Industries in Iron Man 2.

It's one year after Odessa (one year, three months, nineteen days, five hours, and she could break it down into minutes if someone asked her to) when she finds him again. Walking the streets of New York City, shoulders hunched, head down, hair longer than she remembers, the Soldier looks lost. Gone is the man who trained her, gone is the man who shot through her to kill his target, and the scar on her belly twinges at the sight of him.

Natasha expects an attack, expects that his handlers, her old handlers, some unnameable Them has found her finally, and she has no back-up. She's undercover, and only Fury (maybe Barton, she's never really sure what Barton knows or doesn't know) knows where she is and what she's doing. She's not close enough to her safe house, too far away from the phone she'd left on the coffee table because she was just going out for the evening paper, and her entire body is one ramrod of tension when he turns toward her.

His eyes are blank.

Not as blank as they were when he shot her. A different kind of blank this time, not empty, but lost. A man without a mission who isn't used to not having a mission. Natasha has a hard time believing that he hasn't been sent here without a purpose, but whatever it is or was, it's gone now, and it's instinct that makes her reach out and take his wrist. Which only stirs a vague memory (something long-ago forgotten or long-ago removed) of her hand clasping his as she pulled him into her assigned room.

That makes her breath catch, and the Soldier is staring at her, head cocked slightly. But she doesn't dwell on it. Fury explained when she joined SHIELD that there were things that were probably taken from her, memories that were removed because the KGB or whoever they really were thought they were too dangerous for her to have. It's possible that she has too many secret buried deep inside her memory, and the Soldier is, apparently, one of them.

Natasha uses her hold on his wrist to pull him with her, into the safe house, knowing it's dangerous, but instinct tells her that the man who shot her a year ago used to mean _something_ to her. But once they are inside, she's at a loss. Technically, she could be punished for this. Abandoning her own mission to bring an enemy combatant into a safe house. Barton had been bumped down to Level Four just for bringing her in, and he still wasn't back in Fury's good graces, even after three years.

But the Soldier stands just inside the door, hands shoved in the pockets of the coat that looks like he either bartered for or stole, and Natasha does the only thing she can think of right then. She asks, " _Are you injured?_ "

Russian was the only language they had ever spoken together, she remembers that, but it takes several long seconds before he shakes his head finally. Natasha's out of ideas now. Injury was the only reason she could think for why someone like the Soldier, why a weapon like him, had been left to his own devices. It makes her suspicious, of course, everything about this makes her suspicious. She still steps forward, hesitating only a second before she reached up and pushes the coat off his shoulders.

It's a two-fold move. A chance to check and make sure the Soldier really isn't injured, and a chance to make sure that he's unarmed, unable to attack her when she's not looking. He's not wearing his own clothes. The pants are too big, the shirt too small, only the boots are regulation, and he doesn't have a weapon on him that she can see. Only that arm, metal and bright even in the dim light of the safe house.

" _Sit,_ " she says, making it an order as she takes the coat and lays it on the back of the couch. She knows on some level that when the Soldier is in this state of mind, he needs orders, needs someone to follow, but she knows that there's other protocols too, other things to do in this situation, other things _she_ used to do, but those memories are nothing more than smoke, barely remembered, and not definite.

The Soldier doesn't move from where he's standing, though, and that's when Natasha realizes that he's been out on his own for longer than she realized. He's still watching her, and she stares at him for a moment before exhaling slowly, trying to force her body to relax, to let out the tension that is keeping her standing straight, fists flexing, still ready for an attack, even if it comes through the windows and not from the Soldier.

Someone has to be looking for him. He's too valuable.

She swallows, glancing back at the window, light from the streetlights streaming through the thin curtains. The street is empty. Everyone in the neighborhood is already safe and sound inside, eating dinner, putting children to bed, watching whatever reality television show is the hit this season.

"Sit. Please. You're making me nervous." Natasha slips into English without thinking about it, too used to that language now that she is encouraged to use it by her new superiors, and that gets a reaction as the Soldier moves to sit in the chair that faces the door. That makes her pause, head tilted as she watches him. Eventually, she shakes her head and heads into the tiny kitchenette. She takes a plain glass out of the cabinet, filling it with water from the sink, and tries to ignore the slight shaking to her hand.

If the Winter Soldier was answering to English...

Any hope of following that thought process disappears when she feels him behind her. Natasha takes a breath, holds it, and waits. Waits for that metal hand to take hold her her throat. Waits for him to do something, but he just stands there, close enough for her to feel the heat of his body, and there's another flash of memory, brief, just a flash of bare hands on bare skin, callouses that felt better than they should have, and she lets out the breath she'd been holding.

Which is when his hands come to her hips, metal fingers slipping beneath her shirt, pressing against the scar he gave her. It's healed now, it doesn't hurt, but the touch still makes her gasp, back arching slightly, shoulders leaning back against him. Her hand comes down to catch his wrist again as she turns. She doesn't take his hands away from her body, just away from that scar.

The Soldier is dangerously close now, a spark of something like recognition in his eyes, and Natasha's not sure if he's remembering Odessa or something before, something different that didn't end in blood and death. He leans forward slightly, blue eyes meeting hers as his head tilts, and she opens her mouth to say something. Maybe. Because she leans forward too, but there's only a brief brush of lips against her before the Soldier turns.

Eyes alert, body tense, his entire focus is on the window.

Where she can hear car doors on the street outside. Not slamming, they're clearly not trying to draw attention to themselves, but it still stands out. It's not a sound that's usually heard this late, in this neighborhood, and it's too coincidental.

When the Soldier finally speaks, it's an order. One word. Simple. But an order. "Go."

Natasha stares at the window for a moment before she finally says, "Come with me. My people...they can take you in, they can figure out what happened to you. They can _help_." It's a long shot. Dangerous. Stupid. The man tried to kill her once, but then, she tried to kill Barton once and look where that got her. This man, the Soldier, maybe he would be worth getting bumped down to "Probationary Agent" status. Maybe she stands some foolish chance of doing some good with her past, of saving one thing from it, of protecting something that had been important, whatever it had really been between them.

The Soldier looks away from the window to look down at her, and there's a smile on his lips. Faint, but there. "Talking of running away together already?"

She blinks. Hard.

They've had this conversation before. The running away part, but it's another train of thought she can't explore because she can hear voices, men speaking English as they head down the alley toward the back door, and she wonders if they're wearing suits, blending in with the normal people, letting other people assume they had just been working late, or if they're in battle fatigues carrying guns. The Soldier looks to the window, and when he glances back at her, his eyes are dark. Hooded. Deadly.

"Go," he says again, but softer this time. Not gentle, though. He's only speaking softly so as not to alert the men outside. Natasha's rooted to the spot, and the Soldier pulls her forward, using the hold on her hips, and he pushes her away, toward the front door, as he moves to stand between her and the back door. " _Natalia, go._ "

The Russian makes her nod, and she grabs for the phone on the coffee table, prepared to dial Fury's number the second she's far enough away, and before she reaches the door, she looks back, sees the Soldier standing there, unarmed, mostly, keeping his body between her and the men that will take him back and might just kill her if they find her. He turns back to watch her, meeting her eyes.

" _Natalia._ " An order this time, just as booted feet hit the outside of the back door, the old wood around it already starting to splinter. She takes one more look before turning.

The door breaks, and Natasha runs.


End file.
